I no shit you, GI.

Well, looks like the thing is finally airing - on YouTube. Go figger.But if the notion of mercenary bunnies whacking camel jihadis is your groove, go for it. War porn? Yep, but the very least, the animation looks terrific. And I love the idea that I was once a soft, fluffy, lethal little usagi - U.S.A. GI, get it?

Jim: Typical of a lot of manga and anime - their obsession with getting the equipment "right" is very japanese.

Lisa: I think in the original post I was just as bemused. This is just a Japanese "thing", like sumo, that you either get or not. It sort of defies analysis.

Also very Japanese is the bizarre juxtaposition of extreme "cuteness" and either sex or violence to a degree I don't see in most other cultures. We're talking comics that feature anthropomorphic bunnies and kitties having full-on graphic sex or slasher-movie beheadings, that sort of thing.

I had a discussion once about this with a Japanese aquaintence who said that, for example, one huge fetish for a lot of Japanese men is tying up women. He said that there is this huge market; movies, books, pictures, you name it, where the ladies are bound, and the more elaborate the knottage the better. He said that some of his friends considered this even more erotic than actually making love to the woman.

Go figure.

But before I get too snarky I should remember Don Marquis' comment about how "similarabsurdities have only too oftenlodged in the crinkles of the human cerebrum"...

Yes, the violence in Japanese Manga is oddly juxtaposed to their societal courtesy.

A friend who lived in Tokyo for 10 years attributed the violence in print form to their repression. He found relations to be, um, very frank and sexual, but not very "intimate". So the bondage and brutality might be the logical next step, at least in fantasy.

It is an odd thing when the human must fragment to such a degree. Repressed urges will out and mutate, if not given free reign.